


The Pretender

by Selkit



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Angst, Child Abandonment, Child Neglect, Female-Centric, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-03-04 05:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2953664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selkit/pseuds/Selkit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every day of her life, Kuvira convinces herself she matters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pretender

Once upon a time, there lived a little girl who mattered. 

She was born in a small house built from the hard-packed earth, in the dry summer season when the dust was thick on the air. Her parents took turns sitting up with her at night, making sure she didn’t choke, patting her back to keep her tiny lungs from filling up with the earth. The particles settled like snowflakes on her hair and between her chubby fingers, and she giggled as she clenched the dirt in her fists. It was her first laugh, and her parents delighted in the sound.

But she grew up and the times grew hard, and the little house fell into disrepair. Her mother left earlier and came home later, and her father chased after, leaving the girl alone with only the dirt for company. She loved the dirt—the way she could move and shape it without touching it—but she loved her parents more. More and more she abandoned her half-formed sculptures to sit at the window, scanning the horizon for the two familiar figures walking back home, craving their tired smiles and too-bright reassurances.

One day her mother roused her before dawn, took her by one hand and pushed an egg custard tart into the other. Her father trailed behind as they walked down the long, long path to the village, pushing through the door of a large, stern building.

"Sit here," her mother instructed, patting a hard wooden bench, and the girl obeyed. "Eat your tart. Your father and I are going away for a little while, but we’ll be back soon. Sit quietly and be good until we get back."

The little girl nodded and watched them leave, hand in hand. She waved, but they didn’t look back.

The sun peeked over the edge of the world and spread across the sky. People came and went through the door—some in crisp uniforms, some in normal outfits—but none of them were her parents. Her stomach growled, and she carefully picked the tart crumbs off her clothes, holding them on her tongue as long as she could before she swallowed.

The sun began to disappear, and she turned on the bench, craning her head to look through the window, scanning the dimming horizon for the two familiar figures walking back.

_They’ll come soon,_ she thought, but deep down it felt the same as it did when she played with the lifeless dirt figures on the kitchen floor, like it was all just pretend. 

_They’ll come back. They love me. They’ll come soon._ The words echoed over and over in her head, as though repetition alone could make them come true.

* * *

The people in the crisp uniforms took her away, and in her desperation she closed her eyes, reached out with her mind and pulled _hard_ , and when she opened her eyes all the metal buttons from the officer’s coat were lying on the floor. The grown-ups looked at each other over her head, their baffled silence shredded by the buttons bouncing and scattering in all directions, and every _clang, clang, clang_ was a cymbal crashing in her face and screaming _pretend all you like, but no one wants you._

They took her from the earth-packed village and left her in a city of metal, and a woman with kind eyes and dark hair took her by the hand and told her everything would be all right. The girl gazed up at her, wanting to hope, but all she could remember was the last time a woman held her hand and tugged her down the street. 

In the metal city, her bed was softer, her belly fuller than they had ever been before. Every day she went to a little garden filled with soft earth and bordered by pretty trees, and there the nice lady taught her to make metal stretch and hover above her palms. The girl learned to twist and shape it, to make it do whatever she wanted, and it was the first thing that felt _good_ since her parents left her. Sometimes the nice lady patted her on the shoulder and said things like, _"you’re so talented,"_ and _"you’re such a fast learner,"_ and that felt even better.

But the nice lady had children of her own, and when the lessons were over her eyes would go distant and soft as she looked across the garden to where her sons and tiny daughter played. She patted the girl absently on the head and told her to run back to her room, and without waiting for an answer she walked over to scoop her children up into her arms. 

The little girl lay alone in her bed every night, and as she waited for sleep to come, she pretended she was one of the nice lady’s children, that someday she might be allowed a hug instead of a shoulder pat. She imagined the nice lady sweeping her up in her arms, holding her close, beaming at her like she mattered more than anything in the world.

One day, just as the lesson was about to end, the girl caught the nice lady by the sleeve and looked up at her, eyes burning with hope.

"Can I…" she said, her heart stuttering like sparrowkeet wings. "Can I call you _mom_?”

The nice lady’s eyes widened, then softened. The girl’s heart hammered and soared, and she imagined the nice lady was about to pick her up and hug her and spin her around.

"No, honey," the nice lady said, and gave her a pat on the shoulder. "Call me Su."

* * *

Years passed, and the girl became a woman.

She left the metal city and traveled across her nation, stopping at every tiny village made from hard-packed earth. She looked into the windows of the dusty houses and saw the hungry children staring back at her, and her heart burned with a cold and relentless purpose. 

She collected soldiers like coins and cities like keepsakes, and everywhere she went, the children ate, the parents smiled, and the people cried, _"Great Uniter! Great Uniter!"_

And for the first time in a long, long time, she didn’t have to pretend to matter.

Then one day, three years of careful planning, building, and leading all came crashing down in the space of hours, a tailspin starting with the beloved voice crackling over the radio—

_(“Kuvira? It’s Baatar—”)_

—ending with the blinding flash of white-purple bleeding into oblivion, the Avatar’s blue eyes filled with unbearable empathy, the click of platinum shackles around her wrists, the once-nice lady hissing at her with hatred and scorn.

They took her from the world and put her in a cell made of wood and irrelevance, and she sat in the corner and stared at nothing, blank eyes drifting over blank walls. In the world outside, the army disbanded, the united nation divided into states, the _Great Uniter_ t-shirts were pulled from the racks and quietly destroyed.

The days turned to weeks; the weeks turned to months. She sat in the corner and looked at the tiny cell window, imagining figures on the horizon, walking toward her. 

_Someone will come visit me,_ she thought, closing her eyes and pretending. _Someone will come._

The days passed, and the words echoed over and over in her head, as though repetition alone could make them come true.


End file.
